The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for mixing particulate material such as compost, mushroom spawn and supplement, and like materials.
Planting and cultivation of mushrooms are carried out by pre-mixing mushroom spawn (seed) and supplement (fertilizer) with a special type of compost and then placing the resulting composite mixture in an appropriate environment for growing of the mushrooms. Typically, conventional mushroom growing trays are first filled with the compost, spawn and supplement are then deposited on the top of compost in the trays, and then mixing is carried out by hand to uniformly distribute the spawn and supplement throughout the compost. The trays are then taken to a greenhouse or other environment where the temperature and humidity are either predictable or can be carefully controlled. Of course, mixing the compost, spawn and supplement by hand is labor intensive and therefore and quite costly.
Mixing devices have been developed for automatically mixing the compost, spawn and supplement, but such devices typically utilize elaborate and expensive conveyor systems, material emptying and refilling apparatus, etc., or still require the manual emptying of the trays into the devices, operating the devices to mix the material, and then emptying the material from the devices back into the trays. Such mixing devices are thus either quite expensive or still require significant manual intervention and so are labor intensive.